Samsung Galaxy S10e

The Samsung Galaxy S10e has the best overall price, performance, and size for a flagship smartphone today.

Sascha Segan

March 11, 2019, 11:41 p.m.

Samsung Galaxy S10e

The Samsung Galaxy S10e has a 5.8-inch, 19:9 display with 2,280-by-1,080-pixel resolution. It's not the 3,040-by-1,440 you see on the bigger models, but dense enough at 438ppi that it's very hard to tell the difference.

Rear Cameras

The Galaxy S10e has two rear cameras: a 12-megapixel main camera and a 16-megapixel, 123-degree wide-angle camera. It's missing the "2x zoom" camera on the larger models, but I personally find the wide-angle camera to offer more exciting composition options.

Top

The S10e comes in black, blue, pink, or white; there's also a yellow color available outside the US. It comes standard with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage; you can bump to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $100 more. There's a microSD card slot in with the SIM card slot, so you can add storage, but that's primarily for media, not for apps.

Bottom

On the bottom of the phone, you find the main speaker, USB-C port and a standard headphone jack. Some manufacturers have been trying for years now to kill the headphone jack, but both Samsung and LG are keeping the faith.

Fingerprint Scanner

Rather than using an in-display fingerprint sensor, the S10e has a fingerprint sensor built into the power button. It is simultaneously less accurate and less annoying than the S10's in-display sensor. I find the button's placement excellent, as it's where my thumb tends to rest when I'm holding the phone securely. That's very dependent on how you hold the phone, though. I tuck my phone all the way into my palm; if you hold yours halfway up your palm, the sensor will be too high.

Bixby Button

Yes, the Bixby button remains on the side of this phone. The good news is that you can now remap it to another app, if you like; the bad news is that you can't remap it to Google Assistant.

Hole Punch

Like the S10, the S10e has a single hole punch in the upper right corner for its front-facing camera. I find that less bothersome than the extra-long, double punch on the S10+. The punch mostly lives in the status bar. If you're watching full-screen videos on YouTube, it will take a chunk out of your video, but I think it's less bothersome than a notch, especially since it's up in the corner and not at the midpoint of your view.

Samsung Galaxy S10e vs. S10+

The S10e (right) is noticeably smaller than the S10+ (left), with a 5.8 vs. 6.4-inch screen. I think that makes the difference between a phone that's comfortable to hold, and a phone that really takes two hands. In terms of big Samsung phones, I prefer the Note line.

Galaxy S10e vs. S10+ Back

Here's the back of the two phones, where you can see the S10+ (right) has an extra 2x-zoom camera.

About the Author

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 9 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, one of the hosts of the daily PCMag Live Web show and speaks frequently in mass media on cell-phone-related issues. His commentary has appeared on ABC, the BBC, the CBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and in newspapers from San Antonio, Texas to Edmonton, Alberta.

Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer, having contributed to the Frommer's series of travel guides and Web sites for more than a decade. Other than his home town of New York, his favorite … See Full Bio